Right Where We Are
by Val-Creative
Summary: Lyra and Asriel end up with severe food poisoning while traveling. The urgency of remaining hidden and keeping Lyra from getting more sick doesn't escape him. (Canon AU. Show-verse and Book Canon.)


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There's little civilization in this region of the Baltic States.

Fertile lowlands and hills pattern in an erratically lovely mosaic of woods and farmsteads and pastures. One or two churches dot along the roads. They're abandoned by the Magisterium, covered in darkened, moist ivy, the iron framework rusted apart. Patches of wild, insect-droning meadows with crimson daisies and bordered by linden and towering oaks.

Black storks, cranes, otters, white wagtails, deer, boars, two-spot ladybirds live among the dense, sprawling landscape. Lyra, to Asriel's displeasure, tried to wander off to locate the sound of a wolf-howl, encouraging a white wolf Pantalaimon to howl in turn.

Where there are markets, the people of Latvia sell and showcase their crafts, their playing instruments and food. Jewelry dripping with electrum on thick golden strands. Caraway-seasoned hot pie wedged in rye dough and filled with potato and carrot paste and tasting sweet as sin. Wooden and art nouveau architecture. Button-accordions, violins and cimbole strum for hours.

Asriel doesn't know how long they will remain here. As soon as the mushroom poisoning can be quelled… …

He mistakenly allowed both himself and Lyra to feast on an unusual, undercooked dish as they traveled. Fortunately for his bowels, and surely the case for his daughter's stomach, nothing became apparent until eve-fall. Asriel recovers and walks the ground-floor of chartered lakeside home, with an obvious, measured slowness. They're all hidden among the birch groves and pine trees encasing the waters.

The heat flashes, accompanied by nausea and bouts of dizziness, rise, fall, and rise even higher. Asriel pries open the windows, breathing in deeply as cool wind blows against his face and closing his eyes. A low, satisfied rumbling in the back of his throat.

"How is it?" Stelmaria murmurs, also rumbling. She lies on her belly, observing him from a clear glass wall leading to the terrace.

Asriel clears his throat. "The vomiting has passed—_uhnn_—" he suddenly hesitates, forcing down a soft, meaty gag, his jaw and hands tightening. Asriel swallows the bile on his tongue, ignoring Stelmaria's tawny eyes and mopping the hot sweat off his forehead.

"Check on the girl."

"I know," Asriel replies too-sharply to his daemon.

She merely watches him without offense from beneath the double-beamed, darkwood ceiling. Darkwood covers the banisters and staircases. Asriel ventures to an older room not far, glaring at the sight of milky cobwebs clustered. Bookshelves line every wall-corner containing mismatched volumes with flaked, torn bindings crumbling to rot, or distorted with the humidity.

He discovers Lyra there, nestled up in quilts, trembling. She appears to be waking, mumbling for Pantalaimon creeping to her, whimper-growling as a young brown bear cub. Lyra's skin sickly and abhorrently pale with twin blotches of red on her cheeks.

Asriel eyes her, his glare already softened into a thoughtful frown.

"Nightmare?"

She nods drowsily, rubbing over an eyelid. It looked so.

Lyra throws back her head and writhes in place while suffering nightmares. Asriel has the distinct memory of nearly getting clobbered by one of her arms, during their travels between the regions of the German Electorates. He fought to get pillows around her, cushioning Lyra from harming, whispering soothingly. The normally vociferous girl screamed high-pitched behind her lips, as if somehow bewitched into an ugly, endless paralysis.

This time, Asriel slowly comes forward. He looks down to her and touches over the side of Lyra's face, gauging her reaction before swaddling her with the quilt.

"Up you get, that's right…" Asriel whispers, lifting his daughter and carrying her against him. "I've got you…" His weakened, quivering muscles strain before he hoists Lyra up further. There's no possibility in Hell or Heaven of dropping her.

Pantalaimon follows them out as a wildcat, night-piercing eyes and all. He purrs inquisitively to Stelmaria who leaps up, nuzzling roughly against the side of Pantalaimon's skull until he yowls, bewildered by her affection. She purrs much more deeply.

Asriel strolled himself and Lyra out through another door on the ground floor.

It's an relief to be surrounded in the cool, crisp night air. Lyra hasn't spoken, relaxing gradually to his chest, her little head lolling on top of Asriel's shoulder. A faint memory. So faint that it reverberates in the back of Asriel's mind. Moonlight. Damson trees, bare and neat. The priory's garden. Asriel moved as a ghost, soundless, mournful. With a purpose. He swaddled Lyra like this before, motioning to the open, warm skies, telling her about new worlds to find together, and how they would build from the ashes of the Magisterium… a free Republic.

He doubts she remembers. Asriel doubts she remembers her earliest memories, fussing and fussing until she was held by either Ma Costa or Asriel himself, yawning gruffly from his day's ride, walking her through one of his many estates and humming. The only thing keeping him alert being Lyra's tiny heartbeat against him. He swore himself to her from the very moment Lyra drew her first breath in this world. His daughter would never perish in the hands of his enemies — not while Asriel drew his own.

Stelmaria's ears prick. Her tail lashes. She and Asriel can hear the distant roar of the waterfall.

"You wouldn't let anyone touch Pan… would you…"

A huff of incredulous noise. "No," Asriel replies, keeping a hand steady to Lyra's back. "Why would you say that…"

"Someone did…"

Lyra speaks this so rueful, so straightforward, and the bile rises in Asriel's throat.

"It was one of Mother's men. When they tried to cut away Pan from me. He grabbed Pan, and we fought, and shrieked, and threatened to tear him apart, but he wouldn't stop…" Lyra's arms tense to her father's neck. She then says, watery and sniffling and crying in exhaustion, in a kind of fear that permeates bone and blood, "It felt _wrong_… it _hurt_ us and it went _inside_ us…"

Pantalaimon shudders, turning into a red-coated, dark-eyed puppy. He whimpers along with Lyra's gasps for air.

Calm, calm yourself — those are the words lingering on Asriel's lips, but he knows it will do no good. This is not an ordeal that can be placated. Stunned, Asriel cradles the back of Lyra's head mostly sheltered by the quilt. Their hearts pressed together.

If this were truth, Lyra has been subjected to an unspeakable act. A _violation_ of body and soul. Nobody would dare—

Nobody would _DARE_ have touched Lyra's daemon if they knew Asriel would track them down. One-by-one. Learn their secrets and vulnerabilities before using them on his opponents. He would leave Marisa for last, to hear what she needed to say, to consider her reasoning. Beg for mercy. Asriel knows she's too proud for that. He understands. It wouldn't make it _easier_ for him regardless to dispatch Lyra's own mother.

His beautiful silvery spotted leopard prowls behind him. Stelmaria hisses at nothing, more frustrated than anything.

Asriel gathers himself, inhaling and strolling back towards the entrance-way. Black-painted slats of timber on the outer walls. A gently rounded roof. He returns inside, going past the wood-burning stove. Lyra's little, bare legs uselessly hang at his sides. Sweat glistens on Lyra's face and on her collar peeking from her night-gown. On Asriel's brow. They're a proper mess.

Instead of heading to any bedroom, Asriel lounges with her on the parlour's settee, closing his eyes and dozing off. Listening to her soft, stilling noises.

In the morning… he can give Lyra warm lemon water and herbs for her stomach… pack up their belongings…

And… they'll travel on…

They must.

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End file.
